On August 31 of 2016, my friend and I left Rome for a
three day tour, which included Naples, Pompeii, and the
Amalfi coast. From the very start, we were met with
difficulties.
First, we were instructed to meet our driver at a hotel
near our accommodations at 6:30 am. We arrived at 6:20 am
and found him in the lobby, very irritated that we weren't
already there. He tossed our luggage into the back of the
van and pealed out with us and two men. As we careened
through the twists and turns of Rome, we all buckled our
seat belts out of necessity or we may have been thrown from
our seats. Then we picked up two additional tourists and
headed at breakneck speed to the Carrani tour hub. Our
driver didn't tell us where to go or what to do, but we
found our bus and embarked only to wait about 45 minutes to
an hour to depart. I don't understand the haste and
discourtesy of our first driver when we had to wait on the
bus for so long to leave.
Finally we left Rome and arrived in Naples. We expected
some sort of tour, but all we did was get off the bus for a
photo of the bay and we were hustled back on to the bus to a
hotel/restaurant where we were served tasteless and barely
warm food. We were constantly reminded to tip the waitstaff
at least one euro. I thought for the cost of the tour this
was unnecessary and condescending.
The tour of Pompeii was fine.
After Pompeii, we separated from the main group and were
driven to the Amalfi coast. We had upgraded to a 4 star
hotel, and found our accommodations to be lacking. Our
refrigerator didn't work the entire time we were there. We
asked about it at least three times and were assured it
would be fixed it was not. The room was very hot the air
conditioner couldn't keep up with the heat outside. The
food for dinner at the hotel was not 4 star quality at
all.
Before we left the states for our Italy trip, we had
booked train tickets from Naples to Milan for the afternoon
of our last day on the Amalfi Coast. When we arrived at our
hotel in Amalfi, we asked the staff to call Carrani and
arrange for an earlier departure, from 3 to 12. They
assured us that it was all taken care of. Then the morning
of our departure, we discovered that the hotel staff had
merely booked us a taxi, costing us each 50 Euro on top of
the cost of our trip. We had paid for the transfer from the
hotel to Rome, and we simply needed to leave earlier to
catch our train in Naples.
The Amalfi coast was beautiful and Pompeii was an
interesting visit, but I would not recommend this tour to
anyone because of the expense and the low quality service,
accommodations, and food.
